Dan Sullivan can try and run from his abysmal record on fishing, but he can’t hide. Sullivan’s reported financial investments in farmed fish, his long history of greenlighting projects that would have destroyed our fisheries, and his well-established relationship with Pebble Mine executives who are threatening to destroy Bristol Bay fisheries will be top of mind for voters in November. 

“Anyone who has reported trading farmed fish stocks and is cashing campaign checks from Pebble Mine execs has clearly sold out Alaska fishermen,” Alaska Democratic Party Chair Eric Croft. “After repeatedly supporting anti-fish projects at the state level, Sullivan has had 12 years in the U.S. Senate to clean up his record. Instead, he cashed out on farmed fish stocks to get richer, broke congressional finance law to hide it from Alaskans, and funded his campaign with checks from Pebble Mine executives. Don’t let Dan Sullivan fool you, he puts special interests first and Alaskans last.”

Two Alaska fishermen with “roughly 100 years of living and fishing in Bristol Bay” between them recently slammed Dan Sullivan for misleading Alaskans on his connections to Pebble Mine, saying he can’t be trusted. Their op-ed emphasizes how Bristol Bay, the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery, is “important to virtually every Alaskan” except Dan Sullivan, who “continues to pocket campaign money from those who’d destroy it.” 

See more of Dan Sullivan’s anti-fish record for yourself: 

• Protecting Pebble Mine: Sullivan has a nearly two-decade “long relationship of advocacy” for Pebble Mine, a project that is overwhelmingly opposed by Alaskans because it would jeopardize Bristol Bay. Not only does Sullivan have a history of association with Pebble Mine, he broke his promise to Alaskans to donate Pebble Mine-tied campaign cash and has continued cashing checks from the current Pebble CEO while staying silent publicly as executives push to resurrect the mine. 

• Betting Against Alaska Fishermen: Self-Serving Sullivan broke federal law by failing to report tens of thousands of dollars in sales of stock in Mowi – the “world’s largest farmed salmon company.” He reported trading stock in a direct competitor to Alaska’s salmon fishermen and got caught red-handed concealing it. 

• Selling Out to Special Interests: Dating back to his time as the head of Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources, Sullivan approved a controversial coal mine on the Chuitna River that would “obliterate” 11 miles of important salmon-spawning streams in Southcentral Alaska. The mine would have completely dewatered the streams in order to mine coal set to be exported to China. The mine would have wiped out salmon in the river and faced intense opposition from locals and the fishing community. As a result of his greenlighting the project, Sullivan was called “anti-salmon” and was criticized by the fishing community for siding with “outside companies at the expense of everyday Alaskans.”